It's Nostalgia
by fasterassembly
Summary: Post-game. At the height of Rise's popularity, Inaba lures Rise back home, one memory at a time.


The blood on the floor wouldn't be too hard to explain. The holes in the wall would be trickier to wave away, but Rise was pretty sure that holes like that appeared all the time.

What she couldn't explain was the Shadow, but someone would be here to rescue her soon, so it wasn't like she needed to say anything about it, just as long as that person came.

No one was coming.

Everything was—it was… She needed to check.

"Souji-senpai?"

No answer. That was right. The before had been wrong, but this could be wrong, too. So, what was right? Time to think rationally. No, not to think. Time to remember. Souji was in college, far, far away from here. And, well, she didn't _need_ Souji for this. Naoto had given her a gun and taught her how to shoot. Just in case, Naoto said, something should happen. Rise was famous, after all. Famous people had weird people following them all the time, and not in the flattering way. She still remembered the way the revolver flashed when she pulled the trigger, a stutter of a yellow flame leaping into the air. Don't use this at night to shoot at a distance, Naoto warned. It might ruin your night vision, and you're not good enough to shoot more than once.

"Senpai," she said again.

No, he wasn't there. There was something missing, something she couldn't put her finger on it, something that was important. Something that was a part of her.

A man was bleeding on the floor. Why? Because of the Shadow. Okay, so there had been a Shadow. There had been a Shadow and she shot it. No, there wasn't a Shadow. There were only shadows, lowercase. There, but not there. No man. She had imagined it. She—there had been something. Something in the distance between her walls. The walls. The walls?

"Rise-san—"

No, the curtains. That was it. She hated being in closed rooms. Closed around her, a cage with Teddie flat on the ground and blood seeping between of the zipper of his costume and the others miles and miles away. _And miles to go before I sleep_. Still alive, just barely, and blood was pounding in her ears because _why weren't they here what was wrong with them what was she going to do_—

"Rise-san!"

Focus. Focus. She was in a hotel room, nowhere near Inaba. Nowhere near it. No TVs, either, not in this room. Curtains—they were just curtains. No one else was with her. No one except Inoue on the other side of the door.

"I'm here, Inoue-san," she said.

"Rise-san! Is everything all right?"

"I'm here," she said, this time more irritably. Blood on the floor. It was hers, couldn't be anyone else's. There hadn't been anyone else in the room. She must have hit something. Or cut herself while cutting fruit, or something along those lines. So why was there a gun in her hand? Fire coming out of the top. Gun was still smoking. So who died? No one. No one had died, except maybe for her.

"Open the door," said Inoue.

"I told you," she said, "I'm right _here_."

"Rise-san, we heard a gunshot and someone screaming. We want to make sure you're safe. Can you open the door?"

"I'm fine," she said. "Are you sure you heard gunshots? It was probably just me walking into the door or something. I'm—"

Dripping blood into the carpet. From her hand. A small hole in her hand made from a bullet going right through the palm. Red on the walls, a long, smear of rusting red, that came from her—hand.

Okay. So she needed some help.

* * *

"Honestly," said Inoue in the ER. "If you thought there was a stalker, you should have called hotel security."

"It's _fine_, Inoue-san," Rise said. "I said that I thought I heard one, not that there actually was one."

"So why did you fire the gun?"

"Because I broke the face." It was an evil looking face, anyway. Reminded her of Teddie's Shadow.

"Face?"

"Vase," she said. "That's what it was. I stuttered a little." She giggled, and brought her good hand to cover up her mouth. "You can tell the tabloids that I tripped or something."

"Rise-san, no one will believe you."

"Fine. There was an accident on the set, and—"

"The editor for Japan Weekly is staying at this hotel! She was the one who told me about the gunshots and the scream."

"Oh."

"She refused to tell me any details until she extracted a promise for a story out of me."

"What? That's ridiculous! I could've been dead or something!"

Or something. Maybe would've been better if she were—

"You could have been, and she wouldn't have cared, as long as she had her story," Inoue said bitterly. "That's the kind of person she is, Rise-san." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and said, "Your hand is all right?"

"Yep," she said. "Risette was a little clumsy, that's all. The cut wasn't that bad." Not that it had been a cut. And not that she was going to tell anyone that. They'd all think she was crazy.

Inoue was quiet. He said, "Have you been sleeping well?"

"The same. It's fine." Wake up at four, work out until six, grab breakfast on the way to the first interview, do promotion until nine, work on the concert planning until twelve, drive to meet with the sound producer at two, talk with the management and publicity people until evening, work in the studio until midnight, prepare a blogpost, and somewhere in there, study for college entrance exams. She was busy. And she was—and she was fine.

"If you think you're working too hard," said Inoue.

"No way," she said.

The shadows flickered. Rise looked up. The light bulb was malfunctioning, casting shadows instead of light.

"The doctors said you might need painkillers," said Inoue. "Take some with you."

"Someone should fix that," she said, getting off the bed. "It'll scare someone."

* * *

Rise hated them the tabloids. She didn't resent people's curiosity. It was only natural that given a handful of details, people would try to come up with a story. What she did resent was when people took their stories as truth. People, with only a few scraps of paper, trying to reconstruct an entire book from that—

She hated it. She tried to show people who she was, and sometimes, just for the sake of a story, people would distort her. Nothing she could do about it except work harder and harder until people understood who she really was. If they could, that was, because people didn't always get it, people sometimes closed their eyes and—

"A little less sourly, Kujikawa-san," said the photographer.

She was tired. When was the last time she slept, anyway? Maybe around the time the last rumor broke, when… when, when had that been? She wanted to—maybe the light wasn't too bad, but a shadow, the shadows, they were like...

"Tilt your head to the left."

"Okay."

Like long, running nightmares. And maybe she needed a break, because she was pretty sure that she wasn't supposed to hear that noise pounding in her ears after all these years, after all these years, to hear something lumbering, slowly, in the distance, like mountains slowly grinding into dust in the winds, and two plates pushing together until they cracked and bent upwards—

"Can you guys keep it down over there?" said the photographer. "You're aggravating Risette."

Cracking and bending upwards, metal bending clear in half. The knife snapped and spun right off into the air, cutting into Yosuke's cheek on its way into the wall. Yosuke stumbled, dropped the other knife, picked it up again. Slashed again at the Giant of Envy's descending hand, grimaced when the shock fractured his wrist. Cried out when its fingers wrapped around his arms and chest and clenched, grinding bone into dust. Had—had to get Yukiko-senpai, but she was in the other room, face pressed into the floor and body limp in unconsciousness. A bolt of lightning hit the ceiling and dissipated in a shock of thunder. Souji drew his sword, no, should have cast the spell again, why weren't they _listening_ to her? Souji tried to make the switch—too late, it was already right in front of him, leg rearing back to hammer Souji with his foot. Bad evasion, Souji took the kick right to the chest and slammed into the ceiling, dented the ground when he landed. And then Naoto was loading her gun and the bullets were bending away from it in angles—then it was lumbering towards Naoto and _Yukiko-senpai, you have to get up! Senpai! Senpai, can you hear me, senpai—I'm coming up for you, senpai, senpai, are you— _

No, better stop that, shouldn't see everything, bad for the eyes. Not in images, no more images, she didn't want to see anything anymore, didn't want to see the dry, clinical language, no more check-ups or anything. No more _deep bruising, evidence of burn, possible abuse._ No more, move on from that, no more October memories, she never wanted to think of anything ever again. No more October, now time for—now time for eyes glowing red in the mist, bodies shadowed by the great giant, Kunino-Sagiri, turning on her with their swords and shields and guns

_no_ senpai

That wasn't her, that wasn't her, it wasn't them, not them this is the future not then

Okay, no more, everything's fine, let's get back on with the show

She sat up, and four hands pushed her back down.

"Stop that, stop that," she said, shrugging off the hands. "I'm fine—quit it, I mean it! I'm back."

"Rise-san?"

"I'm back," she said.

Silence. And then someone she didn't know said, "I'll go call that ambulance."

* * *

"A real pro," Rise said to Inoue, "wouldn't have gotten distracted like that."

Inoue was quiet.

"I think I began nodding off," she said. "A little bit. Just… a little bit? I promise that it won't happen again."

"How long have you been having those nightmares?"

"Nightmares?"

"Or those flashbacks?"

"Flashbacks?"

"Rise-san…"

"I'm just tired," she said. "I mean, a little bit. I'm not complaining or anything, because this is what I love to do. You were the one who said that I could have control over my career."

"I said _more_ control, not total," said Inoue. "I'm still your manager. You're taking a break."

"Inoue-san!"

"Take a look at these photos," he said, spreading them out before her. "_Look_ at them."

She looked.

"I don't see it," she said. "What am I supposed to see?"

* * *

"So," said the therapist, "how do those make you feel?"

Rise stared.

She didn't know what to say. What was there to say? I went into the TV and watched my friends get horribly mutilated while I stood back and couldn't do anything, anything at all, couldn't do it because that's not the kind of thing I can do. And, by the way, did I mention these Persona things, because they exist, and not just only in my head. No, I'm not crazy, I'm perfectly sane.

"Annoyed," she said. "I'm a pro. I'm supposed to work. And, you know." She didn't know. Nothing she said fit how she felt. Wrong shape. Wrong word. Wrong thinking. Couldn't sum it all up, couldn't find that—that one perfect image, that one perfect word that took everything and made it all whole.

"Kujikawa-san?"

_I was at war._ Could she say that? No, because she never went to war, not one where people could see it. And people would think this was all a ploy for attention, because, really, who would believe her? "Inaba Veteran Syndrome?" No. She was the only one. Everyone else was fine, they didn't say anything, they were… she didn't know, maybe she didn't know.

There wasn't anything else to say. And you know, and you know, who knew? Nothing to be said. Blood on the carpet. No one would believe her. Almost no one else had seen what she had seen. How she felt? Alone. The others never complained. Alone and quiet and a little afraid. They were all so strong, so—so overwhelmed, sometimes she could hear echoes of someone's defeat in the halls and rooms, sometimes when it got foggy she could hear the news reports announcing a new body hanging from the wires, echoes of deaths and sirens and people suspended in the air by antennae or wires or roofs. She didn't complain. Couldn't complain. She was a pro. She was strong, she could tough it out, had to tough it out.

"Kujikawa-san."

Little things rattling around in her head. Her schedule didn't have time to fit this in, she didn't know why she was here, what was the point? She needed to get to Kyoto by noon, and no part of her schedule allowed for her to waste an hour sitting here with some person who wouldn't even understand what she needed or wanted to say or hear.

"Are you—"

"All right?" she said. People asked her that all the time. Well, what did _they_ know, in the end? They didn't see her, they didn't know her. Maybe... maybe she couldn't see herself anymore, either, because who was she, she wasn't anyone, she was—Kanzeon. She was Kanzeon, too, Kanzeon telling her to go easy, Kanzeon telling her to close her eyes. She shook when she smiled. "I'm fine."

Who'd believe her, anyway. She didn't even believe herself.

* * *

She was sitting on the bed and trying to sleep, but there wasn't anything in her head except a ringing exhaustion. Pictures from squirts of colors left on the canvas, stories from a few words, they had taken over her life, they were in her and everywhere. Just a few words and people started talking. Just a few minutes and they were eating her mind from the inside out, on an endless loop. Anything for a story, anything for a story. They all lived happily ever after, they were all happy and ever after. Yes, they were all happy and they were all ever after.

She looked up into the window. The sun was flickering like a candle in the night. And aside from that, what was she supposed to see?

_Not with your eyes,_ said Kanzeon. One thousand meter stare, looking into nothing. _The one who hears all, not sees. _

Nothing to hear, nothing to see, she didn't want to think or remember or see anything, she didn't want to sleep anymore. Didn't want to sink back and sleep or remember or dream or hear. Couldn't hear anything except lies and how things would be okay, how pieces could be made into wholes and completions and finishes. Except it wasn't right, it wasn't true, nothing was okay, everything was wrong, everything

"Okay," Souji-senpai said, his hand on her head and her face against her chest, "everything's all right now."

Yes, thank you, senpai. She—she just needed to hear it from him, from his voice in his…

She was being silly. Senpai wasn't there, he was… he was in college or he was working or… or he was here, his arms and his warmth and his… no, time to wake up now. Senpai was overseas or maybe he was back or… either way, he wasn't here, nothing of him was here, nothing. Nothing but his words saying everything was okay, everything was all right.

yes, everything was all right now.

_The one who hears all, not sees_, Kanzeon said. _You understand it now?_

Sirens in the distance. Someone was dying, someone was… someone was in the dust, someone was sleeping in bed, alive and whole and okay. Someone was… someone was, she could see them through her window, through the haze through the sun through the noise, through…

… She couldn't sleep. The sirens were too loud.

---

**Author's Notes: **Written for this prompt at the kink meme: _I'd like to see any character with PTSD from all that shadow battling and drama and contact with giant technicolour eyeballs. Any character, any point in their life, preferably not humour (but seeing your middle school teacher suddenly start yelling at gooks who aren't there and hoping that you don't look particularly Vietnamese today is, in retrospect, kind of funny.)_.

Sleep is for the sheep. I say this at four in the morning, like the winner I am.


End file.
